Citation

Author Website

www.colinklein.org

Commentary Type

Invited Commentary

Thread

Jonathan Birch, Animal sentience and the precautionary principle

Abstract

Birch’s extension of the precautionary principle (PP) is plausible but raises issues about how proportionality ought to be incorporated into law. Following Steel (2013), I suggest that the PP is best considered as a meta-norm, and as such any resulting laws are likely to lack the fineness of grain that we would hope to achieve. To fill the gap, I suggest a parallel with the ethics of studying looted artifacts.

Author Biography

Colin Klein is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Macquarie University. He works on philosophy of neuroscience with a side interest in the perception of pain and other homeostatically relevant states. In 2014 he received an ARC Future Fellowship to look at interventionist approaches to cognitive neuroscience. www.colinklein.org

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1232